Governor News – Priorities for the Year

Before half term, the governing body formally agreed the school’s Raising Achievement Plan. This outlines priority areas the school is going to focus its attention on over the next year. The areas identified were:

Ensuring the new curriculum, which came into place nationally in September 2014, is successfully introduced so that it challenges and inspires all learners. The new curriculum brings considerable change in some subjects. For example, in ICT, children will now be taught programming skills from age 5. We are aiming for changes to be introduced smoothly and to maintain our focus on providing a creative curriculum.

Establishing a system of assessment which does not use national curriculum levels but which allows careful monitoring of pupil progress. This is a challenge that all schools face as the government has removed national curriculum levels and level descriptors from the new curriculum. Schools may continue to use national curriculum levels but are being encouraged to identify their own methods of assessment.

Continuing to raise achievement in spelling and grammar. The 2014 Year 6 Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar SATs results showed a marked improvement on the year before. We are keen to further embed good practice.

Continuing to improve the quality of teaching, to ensure every child is provided with appropriate support and challenge. Teaching is already solidly good and we now aspire to develop more outstanding teaching.

Throughout the year, the governing body will monitor the progress of the school in meeting targets linked to these areas. We will discuss progress at meetings, look at data and visit the school to talk to staff and pupils. We will also ask for feedback from parents in the annual parental questionnaire.

Communication

For more information about the work of the governing body, see our regular governor blog. This initially appears on the home page of the school website and is then archived under “Governor News”.

For full details of how governors communicate with parents, see “Governor Communication” on the school website.